Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Monkey Break Bananas - A fun new way to open up a banana, and sugar-free recipe ideas using them.

Monkey-Break your bananas!

This is a fun post about a way to open and break up a banana without bruising it.

This playful method also keeps the banana from browning and oxidizing so quickly, which is really nice if you want to put the bananas into fruit salad or pies. Most importantly, it's fun to do it this way! Try it, you'll like it.

When my parents lived in beautiful Gardner Montana, a missionary from Samoa came to visit them. This is how this young Samoan ate a banana and my family has been doing it this way ever since.

Now I wonder where the Samoan learned it from...

My mom told me that many island people do eat bananas in this simple, natural way.

We named it Monkey-Break bananas because it seems like a good way for a monkey to do it, seeing that they don't usually carry around pocket knives. Please don't ask about our logic concerning this... Maybe a monkey has actually done this before...

Anyway, Monkey-Break bananas stay fresh much longer than sliced bananas because the cell walls are not smashed during cutting. My parents lived in Fiji for several seasons and they witnessed the Fijians eating bananas in this manner also.

It's not like you don't already know what to do with bananas, but here are some more ideas for you:

You can dip these monkey-break banana strips (or small squares) into gently melted Lakanto Sugar-Free Chocolate and then chill. These can keep 2 to 3 days in the refrigerator... If they last that long!

Try a chocolate banana cream pie (!) with our Sun Warrior Chocolate Protein Pudding. Use only 3 cups total liquid (instead of the 3 1/4 cups) in the pudding recipe so that the pie will be firm enough to slice.) Now we're talkin'...

Serve the broken up bananas over top a bowl of Sun Warrior Chocolate Protein Pudding and pour over some milk (dairy or nondairy). Our favorite nondairy milk is BLUE DIAMOND "Almond Breeze" Almond/Coconut Milk blend (unsweetened!). Look for it in the dairy cooler.

Serve the Monkey-Break bananas with your favorite whipped topping - dairy or nondairy. You can top with crushed gluten-free pretzels if you want... Oh yeah.

The pictures below are of my dad showing how this is done. I thought it would be nice to have his man hands on our blog. I love you dad - you always are teaching us cool stuff!